Last year a natural onsen spa opened in Shinjuku’s Kabukicho in the heart of Tokyo. A major plus is being able to enter a natural onsen within central Tokyo. However, if you find you’ve missed the final train home and there’s no place to stay, you can come to this spa–it’s open nearly 24 hours–and make yourself comfortable until the morning. You could use this as a substitute for a capsule hotel.

About Thermae-Yu

テルマー湯

It’s a huge authentic spa for adults that can hold 1,500 people. It’s 6 floors—2 underground and 4 above—and complete with rotemburo open air baths, highly concentrated carbonated water, 6 types of sex-segregated baths and 2 types of sex-segregated saunas. A special thing about Thermae-Yu is that every day a tanker truck comes carrying natural hot spring water from Jindai no Yu in Izu, Shizuoka. That makes them an authentic natural hot spring. There are various aromatherapies burning within the facility, which also has a very relaxing effect.

Best Parts in the Facility

1. Large Baths

Mt. Fuji with sakura tile art

Fireworks tile art

They have huge baths like you’d expect from luxury hotels. The style of tile art feels very Japanese.

2. Highly Concentrated Carbonated Water

They boast having one of the largest amounts of highly concentrated carbonated water in the Kanto region. The carbon dioxide soaks into your body, improving blood flow and taking away sluggishness and fatigue. They also say it’s pretty good for your beauty, too. The carbonated water at Thermae-Yu is highly concentrated so you can expect it to be very effective and it’s lukewarm so you can soak in it for a long time.

3. Lying Down Baths

There are even areas where you can lie down on your back in the natural onsen. There are some people who fall asleep because it feels so good.

4. Stone Sauna

The healing effects of rock salts with natural minerals include improving blood circulation and rejuvenating energy.

Healing chair

In the lounge coupled with the stone sauna are fancy healing chairs, each one costing about 200 thousand yen. People say they’re so good that if you fall asleep once in one then you won’t wake up.

5. Communal Lounge

A relaxing space after you soak. Every chair has an outlet and monitor and there’s free WiFi so you could even get work done here.

6. Complete Amenities

The level of amenities rivals high-class hotels. They’ll have all your needs met.

If you plan on staying until the morning, then it will cost about 4,000 yen. For the same price as a regular hotel or capsule hotel, you could also enter an onsen so isn’t this better? It’s a 10-minute walk from Shinjuku Station and close to the Shinjuku Golden Gai so this is a new facility we can recommend for also being very accessible.

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